Uranian moon Project

Contents

Uraniun Moons

A. Planet

a.

b. Uranus' rotational axis is strongly tilted on its side 97.9°. Instead of rotating with its axis roughly
perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, Uranus rotates on its side. This tipped rotational axis affects and
gives extreme seasons on Uranus. Uranus has a magnetic field tilted 60 degrees angle to its axie of
rotation, while this tilt on Earth is only 12 degrees. The effect of Uranus' sideways tilt is that the
tail of the planet's magnetic field is twisted like a corkscrew.

c. As we know it Uranus is the 7th planet of our sloar system. Uranus is a giant blue gas planet
with little or no surface features. Main atmosphere of Uranus is Hydrogen it composing about 83% hydrogen, 15%
helium and 2% methane. Uranus' blue color is caused by the methane in its atmosphere; this molecule absorbs red
light.

d. Uranus has 27 known moons today that were discovered through many observations. These moons that orbit Uranus
are represented in a wide range of sizes and shapes. Uranus has 5 large moons and many other small moons, most of
which were discovered by Voyager 2 in 1986.

e. The diameter of Uranus is about 31,755 miles and has as mean distance from the sun of 1,783,487,000 miles.
Uranus' mass is about 8.68 x 1025 kg, which is about 14x the mass of the Earth.
Due to the size of the planet the gravity on Uranus is only 91% of the gravity on Earth.

B. Moons

a. You can find the listing of Uranus moons here. They are listed in order by
distance from
Uranus. Most of these moons where discovered by Voyager 2 and are about 50-70km from Uranus. These small moons are
what makes up Uranus outer rings. Most names of the moons came from the the characters and works of William
Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. The first 2 moons, Titania and Oberon, where discovered by William Herschel in
1787. Other spherical moons were discovered by William Lassel in 1851, Ariel and Umbriel; while in 1948 Miranda was
discovered by Gerard Kuiper. The remaing moons where either discovered by the Voyager 2 flyby mission or aid of
advanced ground-based telescopes.
http://www.newuniverse.co.uk/400px-Uranian_moon_montage.jpg

b. With Uranus 27 moons, the biggest moon of Uranus is Titania. It is about half the size of our moon and is covered
by many small craters, a few huge impact basins ice cliffs, and fault lines. It has a diameter of 1578km and is
about 436,000 from Uranus itself. Other large moons of Uranus includes Puck, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, and Oberon.
All these moons of Uranus have craters on them and are mostly icy surface.

C. Discovery

a. Uranus was a planet that was first discovered in 1690 by man named John Flamsteed who at the time did not realize
it as a planet, but rather another star. Thereafter, it was frequently observed but disregarded and ignored. Later,
on March 13, 1781, an astronomer named William Herschel discovered Uranus with his telescope while observing the
sky.

e. Uranus orbit around the sun is about in 30,685 Earth days, or just over 84 Earth years. The planet takes 17 hours
14 minutes to spin around once on its axis. Much of the atmosphere rotates faster, the fastest winds on Uranus blow
at about 450 miles per hour. The area toward the south pole makes one complete rotation every 14 hours.

h. Titania and Oberon spotted by Sir William Herschel on January 11, 1787. Titania is composed of about 50% water ice,
30% silicate rock, and about 20% methane related organic compounds. One of the major surface features of this moon
are the huge canyons. Titania has a radius of 788.9 kilometers, and an average density of 1.70, taking it about 8.7
days to rotate, and about 8.7 days to orbit around Uranus.